Ichiro's 3000th Hit - 142 to go! First Ballot HOF! Topic

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?

Are we not answering this question?

yes we did. does your pitching staff have a predominance of right-handers, or left-handers. once that is determined, then your choice determines that fielders total chances. Leftys generally require awesome defensive 3rd basemen. Righties need the glove at first base. the odds. pitchers do not control the total bases. that is a number where u must keep an opponents total bases as low as possible. runners and defense has the greater weight determining total bases. not the batter. the centerfielder in that case must have the arm to minimize total bases.

ability to get to a moving ball is secondary. the turf or grass is primary, just like the arm, as weight and value. again, claiming that offensive output is the same no matter where a batter is placed defensively is secondary. the outfield arm is tantamount to outs, to ensure a pitchers success. cutting off a ball in the gap, from reaching a fence, is useless if your arm is spaghetti. the batters and subsequent runners will accumulate total bases. and u will still have to decide who did what, and who gave-up what. endlessly. make a choice instead, & justify it, if u dare.

saw that too, misterblock. is the CF chosen by u named ichiro or rickey, here in this thread. saw also 2 total 1985 mvps. both hitting a simple pitcher success rate to a rather low 65%. those similarities do exist. the turn-your-eyes from that, and look-at-your-own numbers instead does not work at that point. both mvps had sportswriters in all of those stadiums that season. u see it. they saw it. arguing it is just a dead issue. until u respect the batting averages, and pitcher success rates for what they are, then it again makes no case for ichiro in the hall. his biggest asset and contribution to the game. being successful against a wide variety of pitching. he hits safely, consistently. make him your CF, not rickey here in this thread. u will meet with less resistance.

btw & fwiw, the new york mets put willie mays on first base, not in CF as your choice. again, u lean on some crazy criteria that u cannot seem to prioritize. the mets put him at first because of his aging arm. his bat had value against lefties, and in the stadium, attendance grew. if u don't have access to attendance numbers, they can tell you if a team is playing winning baseball, or losing baseball over a period of time. hot batters bring fans to ballparks. hot pitchers do that approx 4-5 times in a month span. pitchers give up more runs on turf no matter how good his defense is behind him on grass. there are so many simple basics about this game that your numbers divert u from. sooner or later those sportswriters may be in sync with your choices, but only if u look at what they look at. if theres a world war II going on in the forties, how on earth could u change something like that? u cannot do it by supposition of what u think happened back then. u cannot re-write history. it p*sses real baseball fans off. accept that mlb has no need for your approaches at translation of numbers.

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?

Are we not answering this question?

It's a loaded question, based on a single player with a single skill set. The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

The discussion at hand is about two different players, with two very different skill sets, who put up two very different sets of offensive stats.

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 6:25:00 PM (view original):And thats why i generally ignore defensive metrics. I know Mattingly was a great fielder.

You're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

FRAA, for example, rates Mattingly as a great or above average fielder for most of his career. If we assume that the down years were due to sample size noise and not variances in his actual defensive performance, then it looks like we get a confirmation of what you already knew.

I know I used one year data in the Henderson/Mattingly argument, but we really should be looking at multi-year trends when it comes to defensive metrics.

There are no multi-year trends for Henderson in CF. In part because he wasn't a good one and in part because he didn't want to play CF.

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?

Are we not answering this question?

It's a loaded question, based on a single player with a single skill set. The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

The discussion at hand is about two different players, with two very different skill sets, who put up two very different sets of offensive stats.

re: skill sets - you can still compare 2 players and determine who was more valuable. Just like you can have a conversation between the .200 AVG/40 HR guy and the .300 AVG/5 HR guy.

Yes, the CFer is more valuable, and obviously I brought it up because I thought Mattingly and Henderson were comparable offensively. OPS were nearly identical. When you consider that Rickey got there with a better OBP, and OBP has more value compared to slugging percentage (partially because slugging percentage is a naturally higher number than on base percentage), one should argue that Henderson was a more valuable offensive player. Regardless of what weight you put on OBP, 2x, 1.7x, 1.1x, Henderson comes out on top here. Let's not pretend that Henderson couldn't slug, either. He was 7th in the league. You swap Mattingly and Henderson in the order, and there's a great chance Rickey's driving in 100+ runs, just based on people being on base in front of him that he doesn't see with Bob Meachem and Butch Wynegar batting in front of him.

So considering that Rickey very likely had more offensive value than Mattingly, he was more valuable with his glove, and, oh yea, he stole 80 bases and was a great baserunner, explain again how Mattingly was the better baseball player?

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 6:25:00 PM (view original):And thats why i generally ignore defensive metrics. I know Mattingly was a great fielder.

You're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

FRAA, for example, rates Mattingly as a great or above average fielder for most of his career. If we assume that the down years were due to sample size noise and not variances in his actual defensive performance, then it looks like we get a confirmation of what you already knew.

I know I used one year data in the Henderson/Mattingly argument, but we really should be looking at multi-year trends when it comes to defensive metrics.

There are no multi-year trends for Henderson in CF. In part because he wasn't a good one and in part because he didn't want to play CF.

Looks like he played about 300 games in CF over his first three years with the Yankees. That's enough to give us an idea.

Regardless, you already conceded that Henderson brought more value with his glove in 1985.

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?

Are we not answering this question?

It's a loaded question, based on a single player with a single skill set. The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

The discussion at hand is about two different players, with two very different skill sets, who put up two very different sets of offensive stats.

re: skill sets - you can still compare 2 players and determine who was more valuable. Just like you can have a conversation between the .200 AVG/40 HR guy and the .300 AVG/5 HR guy.

Yes, the CFer is more valuable, and obviously I brought it up because I thought Mattingly and Henderson were comparable offensively. OPS were nearly identical. When you consider that Rickey got there with a better OBP, and OBP has more value compared to slugging percentage (partially because slugging percentage is a naturally higher number than on base percentage), one should argue that Henderson was a more valuable offensive player. Regardless of what weight you put on OBP, 2x, 1.7x, 1.1x, Henderson comes out on top here. Let's not pretend that Henderson couldn't slug, either. He was 7th in the league. You swap Mattingly and Henderson in the order, and there's a great chance Rickey's driving in 100+ runs, just based on people being on base in front of him that he doesn't see with Bob Meachem and Butch Wynegar batting in front of him.

So considering that Rickey very likely had more offensive value than Mattingly, he was more valuable with his glove, and, oh yea, he stole 80 bases and was a great baserunner, explain again how Mattingly was the better baseball player?

Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?

Are we not answering this question?

It's a loaded question, based on a single player with a single skill set. The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

The discussion at hand is about two different players, with two very different skill sets, who put up two very different sets of offensive stats.

re: skill sets - you can still compare 2 players and determine who was more valuable. Just like you can have a conversation between the .200 AVG/40 HR guy and the .300 AVG/5 HR guy.

Yes, the CFer is more valuable, and obviously I brought it up because I thought Mattingly and Henderson were comparable offensively. OPS were nearly identical. When you consider that Rickey got there with a better OBP, and OBP has more value compared to slugging percentage (partially because slugging percentage is a naturally higher number than on base percentage), one should argue that Henderson was a more valuable offensive player. Regardless of what weight you put on OBP, 2x, 1.7x, 1.1x, Henderson comes out on top here. Let's not pretend that Henderson couldn't slug, either. He was 7th in the league. You swap Mattingly and Henderson in the order, and there's a great chance Rickey's driving in 100+ runs, just based on people being on base in front of him that he doesn't see with Bob Meachem and Butch Wynegar batting in front of him.

So considering that Rickey very likely had more offensive value than Mattingly, he was more valuable with his glove, and, oh yea, he stole 80 bases and was a great baserunner, explain again how Mattingly was the better baseball player?

One can argue that OPS "has more value compared to slugging" all they want. It doesn't necessarily make it true. It's an opinion, not a fact.

And swapping Mattingly and Henderson in the order is an intellectually flawed exercise, as they both become somewhat different players. Mattingly is batting with a light-hitting Willie Randolph behind him, so he loses the protection of Dave Winfield. He gets pitched around more, he draws more walks and most likely hits for less power as he's not going to be challenged in the zone as much. Rickey would now be batting in the three hole, most likely with runners on base in front of him. He's not stealing 80 bases, and most likely draws fewer walks (oops, there goes his OBP!). Sure, he probably gets 100 RBIs, but his season stat line looks VERY different in the three hole than as a leadoff hitter.

Finally . . . my argument this whole time was not that Mattingly was the better player in 1985. I'm challenging BL's claim (as fact!) that Rickey was better than Mattingly "and it's not even close". That's retarded. Arguments can be made for Mattingly. Arguments can be made for Henderson. And arguments can be made for Brett. But to assert that one of those three is so far behind either of the others "and it's not even close" shows a fundamental lack of awareness.

Well, we obviously disagree on the idea that OBP is significantly more valuable than slugging, and we obviously disagree on Henderson's defensive abilities amd value versus Mattingly's defensive abilities and value.

Well, we obviously disagree on the idea that OBP is significantly more valuable than slugging, and we obviously disagree on Henderson's defensive abilities amd value versus Mattingly's defensive abilities and value.

So you've got stolen bases.

Congratulations.

It's not that we disagree, it's that you're wrong. I didn't make up the idea that OBP is worth almost twice as much as slugging.

Regarding defense, you're delusional if you think a very good first baseman is anywhere near as valuable as even just an average center fielder.